Star Wars Battlefront Review

DICE fulfills the dreams of Star Wars and FPS fans alike

“Witness the power of the Force”

– Darth Vader, Star Wars Battlefront

Thursday 19th November 2015 saw the release of the long awaited Star Wars Battlefront game. It’s something that we’ve been waiting for officially since E3 in 2013. Overall, there was a mixed reaction between gamers about the excitement. On the one hand, it was being released via EA, who have fallen out of favor with gamers over the last few years. But then you also had the fact that this game was going to be developed by DICE, the same studio that brings you the Battlefield franchise. For those that have played them, Battlefield is known for its huge, open warfare, high player count, destructible games. The idea that you could well and truly take the films and create them in full, current gen environment for everyone to play in made us all giddy at the knees. This isn’t to deduct from the Battlefront games from the early millenia, which I still play from time to time. But this experience is something else, and it not just because of the incredible graphics.

Coming from a studio that focuses on first person shooters, you expect the gun play to feel hard hitting, and it really does. Those blasters pack one hell of a punch. Thermal detonators send bodies hurtling through the air, and don’t get me started on the thermal imploders. The ability to switch between 1st and 3rd person is incredibly fluent, and gives you full flexibility of when you want to do it. Hip fire doesn’t seem lose it’s accuracy for it’s guns, which doesn’t make you feel like you need the spend half the game looking down the iron sights. The vehicle control is incredible and something that is very trade mark DICE. The ability to fly above the battlefield in a TIE fighter trying to take our the Rebel scum is so much more fun that you could of possibly imagined!

The range of game modes available at launch are mostly varied. Team deathmatch is Blast, Fighter Squadron is the closest thing you’ll get to Battlefront II’s Space Assault and Supremacy is what Conquest was in the old games. While the bigger Battlefield games can handle 64 players, Supremacy was said to only have 40 before launch. While many of us raised our eyebrows at this, it’s clear to see that 40 is a good number. Although the maps are quite big, 40 people soon covers a lot of area, and when AT-STs get involved you (mostly) have enough of your comrades around to help you defeat it. There was quite a focus on the use of heroes in this game, with 4 game modes using them (excluding their ships). The Heroes vs Villains mode is particularly fun (although pitting Princess Leia against Darth Vader seems cruel). These games are normally over quickly but the swapping of players into different roles keeps you involved.

One thing that DICE does need to work on is the balancing. For the most part, the heroes are understandably stronger when you’re in Supremacy, and take quite a kicking before they eventually go down. The guns are hit and miss (I’m not so sorry for this pun). The imperial blaster does a great job of clearing out everything, until you fight someone who has Boba Fett’s signature EE-3 rifle. That gun can take you down in a matter of shots. The unbalancing features mostly in Fighter Squadron, where I’ve yet to see a Heroes ship be defeated. The Millennium Falcon and Slave I fly around blowing everything out of the sky, and although you’re gaining points for inflicting damage, never seem to go down. This can be argued from the side that you never see these ships be destroyed in the films, so why would they be defeated by a few TIE fighters when they’ve taken on Star Destroyers before?

That’s not say that the dedication to remain a Star Wars game above everything else is a bad thing. In fact, that’s the strongest part about this game. It’s a Star Wars game. From the imposing power of Darth Vader to the way to Stormtroopers run. Everything is right out of the original films. While you’re trying to defend Hoth from the clutches of the Empire you get the that cold feeling from the snowy world. The Forest Moon of Endor is as dark and shrouded as The Return of Jedi makes it seem. If you put a pair of headphones on, throw yourself into Walker Assault against the Empire you will be completely sucked in. The level of immersion this game creates is incredible, and hits the heart of every die hard fan going. Even though the game play may not be quite what the previous Battlefront titles were like (relatively, of course), this game nails the essential franchise points.